All things new

I was listening to song today and one of the lines said:

You make all things new.
You make all things new.

There is something to be said about new things- tangible and conceptual...a new car, a new book, a new day, a new love, a new song, a new baby, a new friend, a new adventure, a new start, a new pair of shoes.

It's amazing to think that God is and is going to make all things new. I find great hope in that. A new me sounds great- not an entirely different me, but one refined and sifted of all the crap that I have picked up along the way, all of the things about myself that I don't like- my need to please people, my capacity to judge and be indifferent.

Newness is so appealing.

A new world, a restored world- marked by peace, love and beauty...that is appealing too. The craziest thing is that I am invited to be a part of restoring creation- bringing about newness. It's incredible how God chooses to use people (who need to be restored and made new themselves) to be agents of change and rejuvenation.

There is another song that I was thinking about today from the Garden State soundtrack. It's called Winter by Joshua Radin- this line always strikes me:

But I don't have to make this mistake
And I don't have to stay this way
If only I would wake

This line reminds me of how I think we do all long to be renewed- it's a powerful realization when we finally get that we don't need to stay the same- that we can change.

We don't have to stay this way.

We are offered newness daily. It's such a beautiful and mysterious concept.

I realize that I have used my own interpretation of Joshua Radin's lyrics, but I think he has it right when he says, " if only I would wake." Because, while I think newness is offered to us daily, it seems like there has to be a conscious choice or an intentional decision on our part to accept being made new. A lot of the time, for some unknown- but most likely deeply embedded reason, I hold on to a lot of the shit in life. It's almost as though we carry our crap for so long that we don't know who we are without it. It's scary that our identity can become so wrapped up in the ways we've hurt people or the ways that people of hurt us. Humans are weird. We do need to wake up - to become conscious of letting go of the things that are old and broken- the past.

Today I choose to be made new. To be open to possibilities. To believe that I can change- and that I don't need to stay this way.

You make all things new.